t she is willing to give,
and ask no more."

"The Carstangs are gone," said Lily.

"Yes; I bade them good-bye this morning before I came to the lime-kiln."

"You don't say you regret their going."

"I never seek Mrs. Carstang."

He sat holding the girl's hands and never swerving a glance from her
face, which was weirdly pallid--the face of her spirit. He felt himself
enveloped and possessed by her, his will subject to her will. He said
within himself, voicelessly: "I love you. I love the firm chin, the
wilful lower lip, and the Cupid's bow of the upper lip. I love the oval
of your cheeks, the curve of your ears, the etched eyebrows, and all the
little curls on your temples. I love the proud nose and most beautiful
forehead. Every blond hair on that dear head is mine! Its upward tilt
on the long throat is adorable! Have you any gesture or personal trait
which does not thrill me? But best of all, because through them you
yourself look at me, revealing more than you think, I adore your blue
eyes."

"What are you thinking?" demanded Lily.

"Of a man who lay face downward far out in the desert, and had not a
drop of water to moisten his lips."

"Is he in your story?"

"Yes, he is in my story."

"I thought perhaps you didn't want me to come here any more," she said.

"You didn't think so!" flashed Maurice.

"But you turned your cheek to me the last time I was here. You were too
busy to do more than speak."

Voicelessly he said: "I lay under your feet, my life, my love!
You walked on me and never knew it." Aloud he answered: "Was I so
detestable? Forgive me. I am trying to learn self-control."

"You are all self-control! If you have feeling, you manage very well to
conceal it."

"God grant it!" he said, in silence, behind his lips. "For the touch
of your hand is rapture. My God! how hard it is to love so much and be
still!" Aloud he said, "Don't you know the great mass of human beings
are obliged to conceal their feelings because they have not the gift of
expression?"

"Yes, I know," answered Lily, defiantly.

"But that can never be said of you," Maurice went on. "For you are so
richly endowed with expression that your problem is how to mask it."

"Are you coming down the trail with me? It is sunset, and time to shut
the study for the day."

He prepared at once to leave his den, and they went out together on the
trail, lingering step by step. Though it was the heart of the island
summer, the maples st